French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday warned that Lebanon risks a return to civil war if it is left alone to deal with the crisis that followed the deadly Beirut port explosion this month.

"If we let Lebanon go in the region and if we somehow leave it in the hands of the depravity of regional powers, it will be civil war" as well as "the defeat of what is the very identity of Lebanon," he said.

Macron was speaking as he prepared to head to Lebanon on Monday in a new bid to press its leaders to undertake radical reform in the wake of the explosion this month that left 181 dead.